ABSTRACT
How we understand, deal with, process, and respond to conflict is a major factor to consider in ongoing recovery. During active addiction, you dealt with conflict in a dysfunctional way. The psychological consequences of conflict may have been muted and diluted by the presence of chemicals in your system. On the other hand, the process of addiction brought its own inevitable conflicts, particularly with loved ones and employers. Active addictions may have introduced high levels of conflict into your life and taxed your capacity to cope and hold up. It is common for chemically dependent individuals in recovery to become exquisitely sensitive to conflict once a recovery plan is initiated and carried out. During the first few months of recovery, you may feel emotionally raw and stress sensitive, and you may be showing some of the delayed symptoms of the post-acute withdrawal syndrome. As a result, managing conflict may be very uncomfortable for you. Therefore, it is important to develop useful and adaptive ways to understand conflict and manage it when it arises.
